Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 30/02) - NorthwesTel is struggling to restructure Yellowknife's community access channel, and the first casualty is Bob Ellison.

Ellison is the channel's current manager. He has run a one-man show for the past few years, co-ordinating volunteers and coverage of events like the Caribou Carnival, figure skating and high school graduations. His last day at the channel is Feb. 18.

NorthwesTel Cable, which signed Ellison's cheques and financially supported the channel, is eliminating his position and rethinking the way it manages community access TV (CAT).

"We're looking at ways of improving the content," said Mike Dittrich, vice-president and general manager of the company.

That means duties for the channel will be spread among various NorthwesTel Cable personnel, and possibly even third-party organizations like the Community Television Society.

Future plans unclear

With Ellison's departure coming soon, there is a shortage of details coming from NorthwesTel Cable on the future of programming like Dump Talk; Take Me, I'm Yours; and Our Dene Elders. The company will not, however, discontinue TV Bingo or coverage of city council.

The lack of planning has some people concerned.

"I was alarmed to hear that we're about a month away from the position being eliminated and there is no game plan for carrying this work on," said City Coun. Kevin O'Reilly.

O'Reilly has called for the company to offer some transitional funding to the Community TV Society, but received no pledge in return.

Dave Gilbert, NorthwesTel Cable manager of marketing and customer service, said the company is making a grant application to the federal Smart Communities program.

"What we'd like to see is more interactive community access television channel," he said.

Ellison said that one of the challenges will be determining how to allocate CAT's resources, most specifically the CAT van which contains sophisticated editing and production equipment.

Gilbert would not say whether the van would be kept or sold.

Valuable service

One of the key players in any new plan for the channel will likely be the television society. Board members there are unsure of what will happen, since they have not yet had any discussions with NorthwesTel Cable.

"We would have liked more time to see this phased in and some support being made available," said community TV society president Chris Szabo. "There's a lot of things that have to be discussed here to ensure that the channel stays on the air."

But, he said, "I'm optimistic that we'll be able to work something out."

Changes to community cable in Yellowknife come at the same time as the company is trying to pull out of other northern communities.

Last fall, NorthwesTel Cable announced it was pulling out of Aklavik and trying to sell most of its other community operations, including Tuktoyaktuk, Norman Wells and Fort Good Hope.

In the end, Ellison said the success of the channel depends in part on the community.

"My prediction is a lull in activity for a while (after his departure), and then after that it depends on how well it's promoted ... and how well the community responds," he said.